Biomarker Sciences Program

The ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group designs and conducts biomarker-based clinical research involving adults with cancer or at risk for developing the disease. Within its novel Biomarker Sciences Program, ECOG-ACRIN evaluates and integrates cross-cutting biologic opportunities, explicitly recognizing the importance of scientific discovery in the development of new cancer therapies.

With the ECOG-ACRIN merger and the emergence of high throughput technologies for DNA analysis, there is an unprecedented opportunity for the incorporation of novel predictive (integral) and response (integrated) biomarkers into our therapeutic trials. It is anticipated that the development of biomarker-focused, small trials will facilitate more efficient design of definitive trials, requiring fewer patients to demonstrate larger treatment effects and patient selection being based on the presence of biomarkers predictive of clinical response.

The ECOG-ACRIN Biomarker Sciences Program was established in 2011, shortly after the merger, to provide the Group with a uniquely coordinated multidisciplinary translational science resource composed of some of the world’s leaders. The program promotes the parallel development of biologically driven therapy and associated imaging- and laboratory-based biomarkers. ECOG’s laboratory science and developmental therapeutics programs focused on molecular and genetic research are integrated with ACRIN’s experimental imaging science program of pre-clinical and early phase trials evaluating imaging biomarkers, and ACRIN’s novel imaging technologies program.

The Biomarker Sciences Program is an excellent venue to promote the interests of member cancer centers and SPOREs (Specialized Programs of Research Excellence), ensuring involvement by their basic and translational scientists. ECOG-ACRIN also invites experts in genetic, RNA, miRNA, and protein-based assay development and leaders in imaging to participate in the program, regardless of their membership status in the Group.

The program contains three scientific committees, which interface with the scientific committees of the Therapeutic Studies Program, which covers 11 cancer types, and with the scientific committees of the Cancer Control and Outcomes Program on the development of biomarkers for chemo-prevention agents and the study of the biology of symptoms and symptom management. The program is complemented by the Group’s network of tissue and specimen banks, imaging archive, and translational science programs.